


new (boy)friend request

by girlpoison



Category: Over 9000 (Band), The Blue Poptarts (Band), Waterparks (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, M/M, Young Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-13
Updated: 2020-10-13
Packaged: 2021-03-07 21:53:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,596
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26984713
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/girlpoison/pseuds/girlpoison
Summary: When he meets Awsten formally for the first time, he’s wearing a pair of swimming shorts and has only one leg shaved. It’s also October.Or: a love story between a scene queen and clueless drummer
Relationships: Awsten Knight/Otto Wood
Comments: 25
Kudos: 44





	new (boy)friend request

**Author's Note:**

  * For [randombubblegum](https://archiveofourown.org/users/randombubblegum/gifts).



> everytime i have the motivation to complete a fic, it always ends up being a parx fic and i don't know why. i wish i had the same work ethic for the mcr fics in my drafts bc somehow i managed to finish this in one weekend.
> 
> i like to think i've improved from my freshman self (or hell, even earlier this year apparently did i seriously write a fucking parx fic this year before despite straying away from them?) and that has been even more improved by my beta [syd](https://archiveofourown.org/users/randombubblegum/pseuds/randombubblegum) so ty greatly to her.
> 
> this one goes out to the ten people active on parx tumblr and my ruined senior year *throws confetti*

For Otto, his computer is made for only three things: writing papers, playing video games, and looking up information on things he doesn’t know about. Today, though, he’s adding another usage to that roster.

There’s this kid around town who’s been hanging up colorful flyers, looking for a drummer for his band. Kid’s odd, to say the least. He dresses like those scene kids he sometimes sees at shows, but somehow even weirder. Otto’s pretty sure he remembers him wearing a neon safety sash and monkey slippers, but hey, whatever makes him happy.

Which brings Otto to his challenge: creating a MySpace. The flyer (which he only took home after the kid left) has the band’s contact information which, to his dismay, is only a MySpace. Otto has been avoiding social media like the plague, but if it gets him in a band, that’s a sacrifice he’s willing to make.

Everything about it’s so confusing. What’s an “HTML” and what does it even do? How is he expected to give out his personal information willingly when the cardinal rule of using the internet is to do the opposite? Eventually, Otto just gives up and just uses his name for his URL and leaves everything regarding personal information either blank or wildly inaccurate. For his first (and probably only) blog post, he types the word “blog” and posts it immediately. That’ll do it.

Otto types in the URL for the band’s MySpace and is greeted with colors so bright, it’s almost painful. Also, it’s _super_ loud, playing what he guesses must be one of their songs when the page fully loads. He hopes he’s not making a mistake when he clicks the “Add to friends” button and then clicks the “Send Message” button when his page reloads.

_“I heard you guys wanted a drummer,”_ he types, hitting send before he thinks about it too much. There. His job is done.

A couple days later after school, he gets a poorly spelled message back. _“Omfg we totallyyyyy did how did yew kno x__x”_ it reads. _“Come by @ the address below @ 2 on sat & well test yer skillz to teh limitz >:) jk were not dat mean hope 2 c u dis weekend!!!!!!!” _

Otto smiles at the message, charming despite being barely legible. Maybe this’ll go well.

* * *

When he meets Awsten formally for the first time, he’s wearing a pair of swimming shorts and has only one leg shaved. It’s also October.

“Hey, you’re Otto, right?” Awsten asks. Otto silently nods a little. “Okay, cool. I kinda figured you weren’t actually a hundred and two year old British chick from Shitterton.”

He meets Jawn next, the lead guitarist who dresses more like a normal scene kid (or really, a normal person in general). They start playing their songs, demos, and covers all while Otto tries to make up shit as he goes. The practice goes pretty well, actually. Awsten and Jawn aren’t like those too-serious guys in other bands he’s been with (then left because they got annoying about their shitty music). Otto laughs at one of Awsten’s jokes at some point, and he looks at Otto like he just won the lottery.

Long story short, Otto makes the band.

* * *

The next couple weeks find Otto trying to juggle band practice, football, and senior year in general. He’s had some close calls, but he usually ends up balancing everything pretty well. Eventually, a day for both practice and the final game of the season overlap and Otto ends up getting his helmet on instead of hanging with Awsten and Jawn. 

Spirits are high in the locker room, the other boys raucous with excitement of ending the season with a hopeful win. All Otto’s thinking about is how Awsten managed to stick a gummy bear head up his nose and cough it out of his mouth last week at practice. 

Coach corrals them onto the field and gives them a forceful pep talk about beating the other team and the importance of the sanctity of football or whatever, Otto’s already heard this for the past four years. He zones out by staring into the bleachers, out over the crowd that sounds more like static than people, when he spots something familiar.

Towards the middle rows, Otto sees someone in a bright red hoodie dragging some emo kid into an emptyish spot much to the annoyance of the people around them. Red Hoodie’s hood falls down as he turns to look towards the field and it’s Awsten. It takes a couple seconds, but soon Awsten spots him and smiles with a flailing wave when their eyes lock. 

Otto feels like he dies for a second, like his heart can’t focus on anything else. He probably makes a stupid face when he waves back.

His team breaks out in a loud roar that snaps him out of that trance and Otto gets shaken back to reality. Weird.

They end up winning or whatever and he tries to find Awsten and Jawn in the commotion of the celebration. Everything becomes this heavy blur of people and cheering, but Otto doesn’t really care. He sprints out the locker room once he changes and tries to look for anyone that sticks out like a sore thumb in the general population of a high school football game. In the midst of his search, he ends up literally bumping into them.

Awsten shoots him a glare for a second before his face goes shocked and then back to that casual, cocky expression that Otto knows. “Y’know, usually when a game ends, you don’t have to use your football moves on everyone you see.”

“Sorry,” Otto apologizes sheepishly. “I didn’t really expect y’all to watch me tonight.”

“Awst—ow!” Jawn begins before Awsten elbows him, hair covering his face. He glares at Awsten before continuing. _“We_ thought it’d be a nice surprise for you because we like supporting our new friends and bandmates. Even if jocks from school hate us even more for cheering for the other team.”

Oh. That’s nice of them to do. Otto puts his arms around the both of them and laughs when they whine about their hair when he noogies them. “Whatever. High school football’s overrated. We should go to Chipotle.”

* * *

The first time Otto actually hangs out with Awsten alone and out of the sphere of the band is a couple days before their first gig. Awsten’s riding with him to a local fall festival with the promise of fun and these candy apples he keeps raving about.

“Anyone else coming?” Otto asks as they pull into the parking lot.

“Dunno. I texted them pretty last minute so it might just be us.” Awsten’s words start sounding smaller and quieter towards the end of that sentence. Which...sounds off. Maybe he's disappointed that no one else will come and he’ll just be alone with lame old Otto.

Otto tries to school his face in a sympathetic smile. “Hey, I’m sure they’ll come by. And even if they don’t, we’ll have plenty of fun together. Wanna show me around?”

“Yeah, sure, uh, of course,” Awsten blurts out. Otto swears he sees color rise to his cheeks. Maybe he should get on with fixing his car’s heater sooner than he thought. 

They both hop out of the car and walk side by side in silence. Weird. It kind of reminds him of the start of this date he had with this girl last year, when they had both basically stayed selectively mute until one of them got the courage to actually talk. 

He hears Awsten gasp before putting his hand around Otto’s wrist and pointing towards something. “Bouncy race. We gotta go so I can beat your jock ass.”

Otto laughs, “Sure, why not?” and lets Awsten drag him where he wants. Of course, a few minutes later, Awsten’s proven wrong when his awkward limbs slow him down badly and Otto has to wait at the end of the slide for him to tumble out. 

“Any words from the victor?” Otto asks teasingly as Awsten punches him in the arm. 

The rest of the night goes a little better for Awsten. They do all the rigged games together, crush any crunchy dead leaves they find on the ground, and at some point Otto ends up climbing this huge tree in the vicinity until one of the tight-faced volunteers tells him to get down. 

“You’re super weird, y’know,” Awsten says as Otto tries to navigate his way off one of the branches. “Like, uber weird.”

“Says the kid I’ve seen wearing monkey slippers around town. What does that make you, then?” Otto asks when he manages his way closer to the trunk.

“The coolest person alive, duh.” Awsten squints at Otto’s shoes. “Hey, I don’t think that branch—”

A crack resounds under Otto’s feet. Before he knows it, Awsten is running towards him and Otto starts flailing as he falls towards Awsten. They bump heads and he ends up knocking Awsten to the ground when he tumbles down. “Fuck!” 

When his head doesn’t feel like everything’s spinning, Otto sits up, fingers rubbing his temple. Awsten does the same and their legs tangle closer. There’s this moment between them, some sort of tension in the air as they’re sat there staring at each other. It only ends when Otto flicks a leaf off of Awsten’s hair, making him snicker a little.

He gets himself off the ground and offers Awsten a hand up. Awsten looks at his hand like he’s never seen one before and entwines his fingers in his. Even when he’s on his feet, he doesn’t let go of Otto’s hand. It feels significant somehow.

Later, Otto buys Awsten a candy apple as an apology and drives him home.

“So,” Otto says as they pull up in front of Awsten’s house, already feeling a bit silly. He sucks it up and goes on. “You have fun tonight? Y’know, besides the tree thing.”

Awsten huffs out a laugh. “Yeah, no, I think that was the highlight of my night. Thanks for hanging with me though. I liked having you all to myself.”

Otto feels like he’s waiting for something, anything that feels right to end that moment, but eventually Awsten just gets out of the passenger seat and heads inside. It feels...unfinished, like a song that just repeats and fades out with no actual conclusion. He tries to recount the events of the day in his head to see what’s missing, but only thing he remembers is feeling like they were on a—

Oh. 

* * *

The problem isn’t that Otto doesn’t like girls; no, he’s liked girls plenty of times on the virtue of their gender and more. The problem is that he might like girls _and_ boys. Or, if not all boys, at least Awsten.

Has he even liked guys before Awsten? He tries to think of any point in time that he’s felt an emotion towards a guy that crossed the line of platonic admiration. Maybe Daniel Day-Lewis? James Dean? Ray Toro too? Otto’s not even too sure about those because it’s hard for him to separate wanting to emulate someone versus wanting a person themselves.

Maybe he should reframe the way he’s thinking this. What does he like in girls in the first place, anyways? He likes the way they look, the way they smile at him like a secret, the way they feel like something delicate, something to be cared for. Now that Otto thinks about it, Awsten’s kind of like that. His fashion choices are weird, but Otto can’t help thinking that he’s pretty regardless. He likes the way Awsten tilts his head back and laughs with his entire chest when Otto tells him a joke. He liked the way Awsten’s hand felt in his at the fair, a soft palm with callused fingers that he could hold forever. A thought of what the rest of Awsten’s skin could feel like passes through his mind.

Otto blushes at the idea. Liking girls: _yes_ _._ Liking boys: _maybe._ Liking Awsten: _so much it’s not funny._

* * *

Everything comes to a climax the day they play their first gig with Otto.

Even after years of playing drums, he always gets so _nervous_ about performing, and those nerves make him shake, and _that_ makes him drop his sticks and lose the beat. His dad keeps trying to give him advice on calming down, but the best of that usually ends in a horse metaphor or him basically saying to suck it up. Typically, he tries to bottle up his emotions and power through and that gives him a 50/50 chance of either getting over it or making it worse. Tonight, it seems to be the latter.

“You good, dude?” Jawn asks, passing him a water bottle. 

His nerves must be rolling off him in crashing waves; everyone else in the venue is caught in the emotional splash zone. Otto snatches the bottle from Jawn’s hand. “I’m _fine._ Just—gimme a second alone, will ya?”

Jawn bites his lip thinking, but nods. and Otto walks towards some empty supply closet and slams the door in. His body feels like it’s in fucking overdrive, like—like a faulty engine on the verge of exploding. Otto chucks the bottle to the floor. He’s not sure if he can do this.

There’s a knock at the door. “Otto?” He ignores it. The knocking continues. “Otto. Lemme in.”

Otto briefly contemplates keeping the door closed and ruining the night for the rest of them before he can do it onstage. The only thing that keeps him from doing that is the “Please?” Awsten says then, in a softer tone than before. Awsten never says please.

Sighing, he opens the door to a frazzled Awsten.

“Hey.” Awsten gulps. “You okay?”

“Guess,” Otto intones. 

Awsten frowns with those two-tone eyes and wow, Otto still has it bad, doesn’t he? 

“I just don’t wanna fuck up in front of people,” Otto admits, staring at Awsten’s neon Converse. “You and Jawn played with me before. You _know_ I can play well. It’s just a matter of other people not seeing the best I can be because the three of us know I can do better.”

“So you’re getting nervous because you’re a perfectionist that doesn’t want anyone else to see you as less than perfect?” Awsten summarizes and Otto agrees with a small nod. “Then you’re not alone. How do you think _I_ feel up there? You’ve got something to hide behind. I’m the guy saying all the words ‘n shit and _everyone_ notices when you say something like _dick sucker_ instead of, I dunno, _destruction._ ” Otto laughs despite himself then, and Awsten goes on. “See? That’s way worse than missing a couple beats because then you’re just gonna be known as dick sucker guy.”

Otto lets himself smile, but frowns again. “But I’ll remember. I won’t be good enough for myself.”

Awsten cups his hands around Otto’s face, making him look directly at him. “But you’re always good enough when you make mistakes. You’ll always be perfect to me.”

He gets a dizzying feeling of déjà vu, a moment he feels like he’s lived before. Time stops around them and there’s nothing in his world but Awsten and the smell of Clorox bottles. _Kiss him,_ he thinks, but his body feels paralyzed.

Eventually, Awsten leans in and does it for him. A chaste kiss, full of passion in its purest form, like a princess kissing a prince. Otto swears he can almost hear wedding bells in the background. 

“Aws? Otto?” Jawn calls distantly, footsteps quickly approaching. 

The two break apart, breathless and quick, and gee, he’s not really sure if they always looked so disheveled right now. 

Jawn nudges open the door. “There you are. You’re gonna make me have a heart attack at sixteen, fuck.” He turns to Otto. “You good to go on now?”

Otto nods, but mentally he’s still trying to catch up with Awsten fucking _kissing_ him a couple of seconds ago, what the hell. Now he _really_ can’t fuck it up.

* * *

Otto fucks it up. 

The show goes badly, at least in his eyes. He keeps messing up because his hands get too shaky and sweaty, and he drops his drumsticks more than once. All he can think about is _AwstenAwstenAwsten_ in the supply closet and not the Awsten looking concerned for him onstage. The audience seems to think nothing of it though, since their demographic mostly consists of their friends, middle school teenyboppers, and scene kids who only go to local shows to say they have.

Otto feels like a failure. His first gig with them and he doesn’t even do his only job. He’s let himself down. He’s let _Awsten_ down and Otto can’t even bring himself to look at him without feeling a stake in his heart. Awsten put his trust into him to do well and Otto broke it for him and his own damn self. 

After the show ends, Otto packs his shit and drives off without another word. 

He doesn’t talk to Awsten or Jawn for a while after that. Otto’s too pissed at himself and confused at Awsten’s own intentions to bring himself to confront him, but whatever, he knew this wasn’t gonna last anyways. He can always find another band.

_But you won’t find another Awsten,_ a voice in his head chimes in unhelpfully. 

Next thing he knows, November passes and it’s already winter break, his birthday and the end of the year creeping up on him. One day, as his parents are stressing over gifts, someone rings the doorbell. When Otto opens the door, Jawn is there.

“Hey,” Jawn looks fidgety and out of place with the farm as a backdrop. “Long time no see.”

Otto sighs in exasperation, but lets Jawn in regardless. “A, uh, friend’s over!” he yells in the direction of his parents to let them know and leads Jawn to an empty corner of the house. “What do you want?”

“I should be asking you that myself,” Jawn says. When Otto gives him a confused look, Jawn rolls his eyes. “Listen, since Awsten’s too pussy to ask you, I’ll ask you myself: are you into dudes?”

“I—” Otto can barely formulate a response on the spot, but Jawn seems to take his lack of answer as one.

“Okay. That brings me to the next question: do you like Awsten?”

“What does it matter to you?”

“What matters to _me_ is that Awsten only came out to me last week by telling me how he kissed you the last time we saw you. He’s been so moody and depressed over you up and leaving us that I’m pretty sure it’s even draining the color from his clothes.” Jawn pauses to take a breath. “I consider getting you back in our lives as a form of a Christmas present to him.”

“Wow, so considerate. You gonna wrap me up with a bow too?” Otto says sarcastically, but it’s all just a front. Has he really affected Awsten that much? Jawn shoots him a look and he scoffs. “Fine. You got me. But I don’t know how you just expect me to go up to him and magically fix everything.”

“You don’t have to. You just gotta tell him why you ran off and that you already liked him.”

“But what if he doesn’t wanna see me?”

“He does. Trust me.”

Otto looks up at the ceiling. “And this isn’t just a ploy to get me back in the band?”

Jawn smiles a little sheepishly. “Okay, maybe some of this is about that, but it’s fucking hard to find a good drummer and you know that.”

They stand in silence before Jawn lets out a sigh. “Listen, if you want me to leave the two of you to angst over this, then fine. But I don’t think Awsten’s had this heavy of a crush before and I doubt _you’ve_ ever liked a guy like this. Think about it.”

“And if I don’t?” Otto asks, trying to sound lighthearted. 

“Then I have seriously gotta find a better present. If you do though, tell him you’re my present to him,” Jawn says as he makes his way out. “Think about it.”

Otto gives him an awkward wave goodbye and shuts the door. He presses his back against the door and slumps down against the wood. Thinking about it is probably the only thing he’ll end up doing.

* * *

Otto thinks about it so hard that he finds himself on Awsten’s doorstep on the day before Christmas Eve.

Just as he’s about to pussy out and go back home, Awsten’s mom opens the door. 

“Oh, Otto. I haven’t seen you around lately,” she says warmly. Maybe she doesn’t know that they haven’t been talking for an entire month. “Come in. I’ll get—”

“No need, ma’am,” Otto interrupts her quickly. “I want it to be a surprise.”

She nods. “Well, he’s in his room. You can come down anytime if you want anything.”

Otto mutters out a thank you and treks up to Awsten’s door. His fist hovers over the door for a while, still contemplating before he makes a weak knock. When there’s no response, he knocks more insistently and takes a deep breath when he hears footsteps shuffling closer.

“What?” Awsten says, already rolling his eyes as the door swings open. He blinks in surprise when he looks at Otto. “Oh. You’re not Gracie.”

“No, I am most certainly not.” Otto lets himself into Awsten’s room, which looks roughly the same as when he was last in it. “We need to talk.”

“About what?” Awsten says, feigning ignorance.

“About that kiss. About _us.”_ Otto reins Awsten in with an arm over his shoulder so they’re both sitting on his bed. Awsten has his face hidden in his hair, not looking at Otto as he pushes his arm off. 

“You already did what you had to do and that’s fine by me,” Awsten says in a way that pointedly does not sound fine. 

“I wasn’t thinking straight. I was pretty distracted that night. Can you take a guess why?” Otto asks, smiling reassuringly. Awsten still doesn’t look at him and the smile fades. “I already didn’t wanna fuck up, for my own sake. After that, I couldn’t fuck up for you, but I still did. I hated myself for that.”

Awsten still doesn’t turn to face him, but Otto sees a shift in his posture and takes that as a promising sign. “I like you, Awsten. In—in, like, the gay way, if you didn’t get that.”

“You’re just saying that,” Awsten responds sullenly.

“I’m not. I only realized after we hung out at the fall fest, when no one else came. It felt like a pretty great date up until the end.”

“Because it _was_ a date.” Awsten finally turns in his direction and bites his lip. “I never actually told anyone else about that day. It was just supposed to be for us.”

Otto smiles. He secretly hoped that they could still have a private moment between them that no one else knew about. “That was sweet of you. It was a great date other than,” he makes a vague hand motion, _“that_ part.”

Awsten chuckles. “How was I supposed to know you were a tree climbing freak? You could’ve got us totally concussed or something.”

“Concussed,” Otto repeats.

“Concussed. It’s a real fucking word. Maybe you’ve never heard of because all that football made your head super concussed for years.” Awsten says matter of factly. They both laugh, and the room stops feeling as heavy as it did a moment ago. 

“Y’know, there was a reason I realized I fell for you,” Otto begins.

Awsten hums, letting his head rest in Otto’s lap, stroking his biceps with his calloused fingers. “Was it boyish charm? My hot eight pack abs? My model face and outfits?”

“No, it’s because there was something I really wanted to do when I dropped you off.” Otto considers just telling him, but fuck it, he’s feeling bold so he leans in to kiss the boy on his lap. Awsten kisses him back, hands holding his face, but Otto’s posture is killing him from this angle, so he breaks them apart.

Instead, Otto takes Awsten’s hand in his, the other wrapped around his rubber band-clad wrist, and pins him down on the bed. Awsten blows a gust of air at his face and Otto retaliates by kissing him again. Their hands work their way across arms, shoulders, chests; the kiss quickly deepens. Otto teases his tongue against Awsten’s mouth and he lets it open for him. He swears he hears Awsten moan a little. Otto gets the idea to stick his knee between Awsten’s legs and grind down on him; Awsten definitely lets out a moan at that, and Otto’s grip around Awsten tightens. Jeez, he came here to apologize and now he’s having the hottest makeout of his—

“Otto, are you still—” Awsten’s mom interrupts from the doorway. “Oh. Sorry, honey.”

They both scramble as far from each other as they possibly can and sit on opposite sides of the bed.

“Mom,” Awsten says in a tight voice.

“Alright, alright, I’ll leave you boys alone. Awsten, you do know where the—”

_“Mom,”_ Awsten repeats, face burning.

She leaves them to it and closes the door on her way out. 

Awsten slaps his hand on his forehead. “That was the most embarrassing moment of my life.”

Otto wipes a string of spit still on Awsten’s lip and he looks absolutely _mortified._ “Great. And I talked to my mom while I had someone else’s spit on my mouth.”

“I’ll keep a memo for next time to lock the door,” Otto says.

Awsten wiggles his eyebrows. “Next time, huh? Otto Wood, are you propositioning me? ‘Cuz I’m saving myself for marriage like the Bible tells me to. Hey, wait, Ke$ha does gay marriages! She should totally do ours.”

Otto just throws a pillow at Awsten’s face and they have a play fight over it. Maybe they’ll finish what they started next time.

* * *

Dating the lead singer is such a cliche.

“I don’t know about you, but I don’t think there’s a lot of bands that have the drummer and the singer in a gay relationship,” Awsten explains when Otto tells him so. “Like, I dunno, Frank and Gerard seem like more of a cliche than us. Fanboy falls for lead singer and gets in the band. And that’s only if you don’t count the weird shit they’ve done onstage.”

“So you don’t think I’m your biggest fan?” Otto teases.

“No, you totally are, it’s just that your heart belongs to Gerard before it does to me. I know the way you think.” Awsten leans his face closer to Otto’s.

“What do you think I’m thinking now, then?” Otto asks, their noses almost touching.

“Oh I got a couple ideas…”

“Save it for later,” Jawn says, exasperated, with his guitar in hand. “I’d like us to play before you decide to play grabdick with Otto again.”

“One time!” Awsten rebutts. He makes a noise with his guitar and walks back to his mic. “What’s up Sarah’s basement? Y’all ready to rock your faces off with pure Norwegian thrashcore black metal?” There’s yells in approval. “Well you’re not getting that! Hope y’all like K-pop!”

Otto laughs and counts them in, nowhere else in the world he would rather be.

**Author's Note:**

> tell me if it made you cry, shit, nut, or flail reading this in the comments n kudos belowwwwwwwww so i can get the guts to finish my mcr fics.


End file.
